July  i,  1896.] 
THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
19 
TOBACCO  IN  INDIA. 
Notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  written  against 
the  use  of  tobacco,  from  the  day  that  King  James 
the  First  of  England  penned  his  famous  “couuter- 
blasto  ” down  to  these  times  of  later  day  saints,  the 
solaceful  herb  has  so  recommended  itself  to  the  human 
race  that  it  uow  ranks  as  the  most  widely  distribu- 
ted luxury  on  the  fice  of  the  globe.  When  first 
introduced  into  Europe,  the  virtues  of  the  plant  were 
extolled  with  the  wildest  exaggeration,  and  it  was 
supposed  to  cure  almost  every  imaginable  malady. 
Practical  experience,  however,  smii  proved  the  fallacy 
of  this  opinion,  and  when  the  inevitable  reaction 
set  in,  every  effort  was  made  by  king.s,  popes  and 
emperors  to  stamp  out  a habit  that  was  uow  denounced 
as  morally  and  physically  degrading.  Laws  were 
promulgated  forbidding  the  consumption  of  tobacco  in 
any  shape  or  form  under  the  penalty  of  severe  and 
sometimes  cruel  punishments.  In  Turkey,  in  ignor- 
ance of  the  value  of  this  gift  of  nature  whicli  so 
well  suits  the  contemplative  and  some  what  taciturn 
character  of  its  people,  persons  convicted  of  smoking 
were  made  a terrible  example  of  by  having  their 
lips  cut  off,  while  otheis  found  addicted  to  snuff-taking 
were  deprived  of  their  nose.  Even  drastic  measures 
such  as  these,  however,  proved  as  ineffectual  as  the 
remedy  tried  by  King  James  of  raising  the  tax  on 
tobacco  at  once  from  2d  per  lb.  (the  duty  primarily 
levied  on  imports  of  the  article  from  Virginia)  to  (is 
lOd  per  lb.  The  fashion  introduced  by  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh  spread  from  country  to  country  with  the 
rapidity  and  irresistibility  of  a prairie  fire.  The 
world's  consumption  of  tobacco  must  be  uow  some- 
thing enormous  ; a French  statistician  about  ten 
years  ago  estimated  it  at  4,48()  million  lb.  annually. 
Tobacco  was  introduced  into  India  about  1605,  the 
last  year  of  xVkbar’s  reign,  by  the  Portuguese,  w'hose 
influence  in  the  East  was  then  in  its  zenith.  Hero  as 
in  Europe  its  use  was  interdicted  by  those  in  power, 
and  it  is  related  that  in  Lahore,  during  Jehangir’s 
rule,  smokers  had  their  lips  cut  off  as  in  Turkey, 
although  a milder  penalty  was  sometimes  imposed,  vh., 
that  of  being  forced  to  ride  through  the  town  on  a 
donkey  with  face  blackened  and  turned  tailwards. 
Even  to  the  present  day  the  luxury  of  tobacco  is 
denied  to  Sikhs,  Wahabis  and  certain  Hindu  sects 
by  their  religious  guides,  although  indulgence  in 
hemp  and  opium  is  permitted  ait  lib.  Measures  of 
repression,  however,  were  no  more  successful  in  the 
East  than  in  the  West,  and  long  ago  the  xrse  of 
the  fragrant  weed  became  practically  universal  all 
over  India.  In  1888-89  the  annual  value  of  the 
sales  and  of  the  local  consumption  was  estimated 
by  Dr.  George  Watt  at  not  far  short  of  25  mil- 
lions sterling.  The  most  important  producing  dis- 
tricts are  Coimbatore,  Godaver  and  Kistna  in  the 
Madras  Presidency  Rangpur  and  Tirhoot  in  Bengal, 
and  Kaira  in  Bombay,  but  there  is  hardly  an  out- 
of-the-way  village  where  the  familiar  patch  of  to- 
bacco, grown  as  a garden  crop,  is  not  to  be  seen. 
In  fact  it  is  looked  upon  really  as  more  among 
the  necessities  of  life  than  a luxury,  and  there 
is  a Behar  proverb  which  may  be  taken  as  ap 
plying  with  equal  force  to  the  greater  portion 
of  India:  Khaine  khac,  na  tmuaka  pie,  Se  nu’ 
halaica  kaise  jie,  i.  e.,  “ show  me  the  man 
who  can  live  without  either  chewing  or  smoking 
tobacco.”  In  Madras  the  area  under  cultivation, 
125,000  acres  according  to  the  latest  statistics  has 
extended  by  about  50  per  cent  within  the  last  ten 
years,  owing  doubtless  chiefly  to  the  growth  of  the 
cigar  industry.  The  Kistna  and  Madura  districts 
produce  the  famous  Lanka  leaf,  used  for  making 
Trichinopoly  cheroots.  In  Bengal,  the  crop  which  in 
1893-91  covered  an  area  of  730, 500, acres,  is  grown 
more  or  less  extensive  in  evei’y  district,  but  some- 
what restrictodly  for  trade  and  export.  From  Rangpur 
it  is  despatched  in  some  quantity  to  Chittagong  for 
transport  to  Burma.  In  Behar,  whore  cultivators 
have  been  said  to  derive  the  handsome  profit,  of  from 
R60,  to  as  much  as  R80  per  bigha  for  the  cro).), 
the  produce  is  partly  exported  in  carts  to  Neiial, 
to  Hajeepur  and  other  river  ports  in  the  district; 
partly  bought  up  by  travelling  merchants  who  trans- 
port it  by  rail  and  river  to  the  Upper  Provinces 
9,nd  Bengal,  and  partly  :,old  to  purchasers  from 
Gorakhpur — sometimes  before  the  crop  has  been 
cut.  Cultivation  in  Bombay  fluctuates  much  ; in  1887- 
88  about  87,000  acres  were  under  the  crop  ; in  the 
following  year  a contraction  of  about  30,000  acres 
took  place  ; while  in  1893-91  the  area  had  expanded 
again  to  98,198  acres.  In  the  Punjab  the  crop  also 
fluctuates  considerably,  in  1883-81,  1886-87  and  1893- 
91,  the  acreage  was  respectively  85,100,  46,137  and 
68,153.  In  the  Jhang  district,  however,  at  all  events 
tobacco  is  regarded  as  most  profitable  of  all  crops. 
Neither  the  soil  nor  the  climate  of  the  North-Wes- 
tern Provinces  and  Oudh  are  favourable  for  the  pro- 
duction of  good  leaf — at  least  above  Ghazipur — still 
cultivation  has  been  steadily  increasing,  and  in  1893- 
91  the  area  was  recorded  as  close  on  86,000  acres. 
Ill  Lower  Burma,  where  all  the  inhabitants,  men, 
women  and  children,  smoke,  nearly  the  whole  of  the 
tobacco  produced  is  consumed  locally,  in  addition  to  large 
quantities  imported  from  Bengal  and  Madras.  Very  fine 
leaf  has  been  grown  in  Northern  Arrakan — pronounced 
by  many  people  equal  to  the  best  imported  from 
Turkey  and  Per.sia — whence  derived  it  i.s  not  known, 
but  the  suggestion  has  been  made  that  it  was  raised 
originally  from  Manilla  and  other  foreign  seed.  By 
certain  manufacturers  at  home,  it  has  been  supposed 
to  have  been  iiroduced  from  the  seed  of  Havannah 
or  St.  Domingo  tobacco ; and  according  to  their  ver- 
dict both  as  regards  colour'  and  leaf  it  possesses 
excellent  qualification  for  cigar-making. 
But,  generally  speaking,  English  opinion  on  In- 
dian tobacco  has  all  along  been  unfavourable.  The 
truth  of  the  matter  is  that  the  great  bulk  grown 
in  the  country  is  consumed  by  the  native  popula- 
tion, whose  taste  and  mode  of  using  it  require  a 
leaf  possessing  strength  rather  than  delicacy  of 
flavour  and  aroma,  while  in  order  to  produce  what 
Europeans  look  upon  as  good  standard,  the  crop  de- 
mands more  .attention  than  the  ryot,  as  a rule, 
can  spare,  and  especially  as  regards  the  trouble- 
some operation  of  curing.  This  accounts  for 
the  fact  of  our  export  trade  in  unmanufactured 
tobacco,  valued  in  1891-95  at  about  lOJ  lakhs 
showing  instead  of  progression  a considerable  de- 
cline. It  is  unquestionable  that  the  quality  of 
Indian  tobacco  is  capable  of  much  improvement 
and  within  the  past  12  years  the  limited  efforts 
made  in  this  direction  have  been  fairly  successful, 
especially  in  Madras,  both  in  respect  of  the  raw 
product  and  the  manufacture  ; but  unfortunately 
cultivators  cling  to  the  theory  that  it  pays  them 
better  to  produce  a large  growth  of  inferior  leaf, 
which  suits  the  native  consumer,  rather  than  a 
smaller  quantity  of  superior  leaf,  for  which  in  time 
they  might  expect  to  realise  what  woirld  be  to 
them  a fancy  price.  Probably  in  order  to  extend 
appreciably  the  production  of  tobacco  suitable  for 
the  consumption  of  Europeans  and  the  classes  of 
well-to-do  natives  who  have  learned  to  prefer  it  to  the 
compound  used  in  the  hookah,  the  leaf  would  require 
to  be  cured  and  prepared  European  agency,  the  mere 
cultivation  being  left  in  native  hands.  Following  this 
principle  and  with  due  attention  paid  to  the  processes 
of  curing,  sorting,  and  packing;  all  points  of  great 
importance  in  striving  for  commercial  success 
India  might  bo  expected,  in  time,  to  take  up  the 
supply  of  a far  huger  share  of  the  world’s  demand 
for  tobacco  than  falls  to  her  at  present.  Undoubtedly 
there  are  powerful  rivals  iu  the  field  who  have  al- 
ready secured  the  markets  best  worth  having,  but 
what  has  been  done  elsewhere  may  be  done,  here, 
and  India  is  said  to  bo  situated  more  favourably  for 
tobacco-growing  than  those  European  States  where 
foreign  varieties  of  seed' have  been  successfully  ac- 
climatised. With  this  advantage,  perfect  freedom 
from  excise  duties  and  regulations  and  capabilities 
of  improvement  in  market  value,  it  seems  to  say 
little  for  enterprise  in  India  that  not  only  has  our 
export  trade  iu  the  raw  article  fallen  away,  but 
also  that  the  trade  in  the  manufactured  article 
remains  practically  what  it  was  20  years  ago,  he., 
confined  to  insignificant  dealings  with  the  Maldives, 
the  Straits  Settlements,  Ceylon  and  Arabia,  Ac , 
the  total  value  of  which  in  1891-95  was  1131,382.  On 
(he  other  hand,  imports  of  manufactured  tobacco 
(other  than  cigars),  valued  in  1893-91  and  1891-9.'j 
at  177  and  IU  lakhs  respectively,  have  about 
trebled  in  value  during  the  abo\e  men- 
